This rotating image is from the back page of a tobacconist’s encyclopaedia from 1912. It is from an era when smoking was marketed as a sophisticated and fun pastime, at least according to the records of advertising posters within the book from that year. Saving it from a skip I kept it to possibly use at a later date or just to hang from a couple of nails on my bedroom wall. I’ve been trying to quit smoking myself on and off over the past couple years. Now I feel I need a cigarette when I’m working or stressed, yet I also feel I have to have a cigarette when relaxing or enjoying myself. It has become an essential act in both work and leisure.

Alex Pain currently has a studio at One Thoresby Street, lives in Nottingham, UK and graduated from BA Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University (2011). The same year he was awarded a Solo Show prize at the Castle Open and exhibited ERRATICS at Nottingham Castle in 2012. Other solo exhibitions include Cut Across The Grain, CUSP, 2012. Group shows include Europa-Hungary-Balaton, Hungary, 2011 and Sculpturing, Two Queens, 2013. His sculpture Tor was selected for an acquisition by Arts Council England in 2014.